


Scissum Est Medium

by Teleportation_Magic



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, It's really bad in this fic, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Steve Rogers Is a Good Bro, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicidal Wanda Maximoff, Wanda Maximoff Needs a Hug, Whump, and she's trying, hes also trying, so please be careful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 13:13:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20874776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teleportation_Magic/pseuds/Teleportation_Magic
Summary: Wanda grieves.She grieves until she is tired of grieving, misses until she is tired of missing, and hurts until she is tired of hurting.





	Scissum Est Medium

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for suicidal themes.

Wanda sits.

Her room is a quiet space. It’s oddly quiet, at times. Back home, there was always something going on - some noise, some racket, some shopperson yelling at Pietro-

Pietro.

She falls backwards, and grief hits her like a storm of dust. Wanda cannot - it hurts, the hole in her chest. It aches. Wanda is tired.

Wanda is so very tired.

The anger in her chest that burned her and spurred her on for so long is ash, now. Ashes to ashes. How much had burned until her rage turned to ash?

Her brother. Her city. Look at what she’d done.

She wants Pietro. Wanda can’t hold back the tears for another moment - she wants her brother. She is incomplete without him, a hole where her heart should be.

She is empty.

* * *

Wanda couldn’t.

They told her that they’d give her time, that she would be able to wait until she was ready to join them. Wanda knew she would never be, never be ready to be a part of something without her brother, without Pietro.

Her lungs burned, and her eyes were red, and she curled up on herself. She didn’t want to move - there was nothing left for her, but ashes. Ashes, and promises from a team who held the man she’d sworn to fight.

Wanda wanted to laugh. She did not feel enough to let any of it out.

Wanda wants to rest.

* * *

Wanda sleeps.

Wanda dreams of Mother, of Father, of Pietro, and she aches. Wanda is reaching, reaching, reaching, but whenever she touches them they turn into red wisps in her hands.

She can’t, can’t keep living and breathing and seeing and standing when she wants to collapse. Wanda hurts so acutely that she’s gone numb, there is nothing left for her here. Nothing at all.

She misses her family.

Her breathe caught, and she sits back on the bed. Not tonight. She wanted to see the sunrise once more.

* * *

Wanda wakes.

The sun scatters its rays across the sky, and even though the sunrise isn’t clear, it is beautiful in its light pinks and blues and oranges. She misses the Sokovian sunrise, but this is better than nothing.

Wanda eats. She smiles at the familiar taste - Mama made it for her, a couple times. Toast. With butter. Natasha isn’t awake and Clint isn’t here, and Wanda is glad for that, because if either of them were, they would know, and they’d stop her. Wanda was too far in to stop.

She says hi to Steve.

* * *

Wanda writes.

The first is a note to Clint. It is a thank you, and a wish for his children. At the end, she pauses and adds that it is not his fault.

This was her choice.

The second is a letter to Natasha. She writes similar things, but with hope that the Avengers might be great. But in the end, she reminds her that there is nothing she could have done.

This is her choice.

She writes a letter to Stark. It is an angry letter, and she writes about being ten, and parents dead, and a bomb named Stark.

She stares at it after it is written, and she tears it to shreds, before dissolving it with her red.

She looks down to the red swirling in her hands.

This is her choice.

She makes her magic sharp like the edge of a spear. She lifts it, slowly, slowly, and holds it against her throat.

Wanda takes a breath.

She pushes.

The spear doesn’t move.

Wanda feels something gather in her, right and unyielding. She tries again, but she feels a piece of her scarlet it in front of her throat. She cannot end herself.

Wanda licks her lips. That is... unfortunate, but fine. There are ways without the scarlet.

She remembers Natasha giving her a razor, something to trim herself with. She pulls it apart with the red and forces it up to her neck.

Her red stops it.

Wanda breathes out. She pushed her red away - and it doesn’t move. She claws at it with her hands, and it does not budge. She screams at it, and pleads, says _this is her choice, her choice, her choice _and does not stop until she hears heavy footsteps down the hall, and she shoves the sharps of metal under the bed, and when Steve bursts into the room, he cannot see the letters, or the shards, or the blood red spear.

She is slumped on her bed and turns her eyes up to him.

“Let me be.”

“Wanda, I know you’re grieving, but-“

“Let. Me. Be.”

The Captain studied her for a moment. “Are you sure that’s what you want?”

Wanda nodded her head. He hesitated, before leaving.

She took out the letters for Clint and Natasha and hid them, underneath a flowerpot in the corner of her room.

* * *

Wanda trains.

She throws herself into working harder and harder and harder. They have her do tricks, and Wanda slowly learns her way around them.

Shields are her least favorite. Shields must be maintained; they are a constant pulse of energy that bursts from her. Wanda wants to give.

She likes the spears the most.

* * *

Wanda fights.

There are so many things that can go wrong in a fight.

Her scarlet curls around her, and she fires blast after blast, knocking people down. She knows she isn’t checking her blind spots, and sees the stray gunfire that comes her way, and her red comes up to block it. When Natasha is done, and is looking at her, she raises her shields, and she blocks the gunfire on her own.

“I can handle it.” She says. Her red will always protect her. “You don’t have to keep looking back for me.” She cannot die. Natasha nods, and Wanda lets out a breath, before dropping the shield again.

* * *

Natasha sits her down, before passing a note to her.

It has a number printed on it.

“What is this?” Wanda replies.

“A therapist.” Natasha replies. “A grief therapist. They’ll help you with any issues you might have.”

Wanda looks down dully. How could anyone understand how it was like to have half your soul ripped out, have pieces of yourself scattered to the wind?

“Sure.” Wanda said. Monotone. “I’ll check it out.”

She never got around to it.

* * *

Wanda does her magic.

She looks at her hands as the red swirls around in them. She creates two twin balls of destruction (what is one half without the whole?) and turns them on each other, spiralling balls of grief. She is so tired of being tired, so tired of being choiceless, of being trapped in this body, of not having Pietro. She wants to let go. The balls push against each other, and Wanda pours all her might into them, every iota of power that she has, until she is shaky and weak and exhausted and her fingers give out, muscle by muscle, and the energy explodes.

That should be the end.

It isn’t.

She grabs a pillow and screams, and tucks the notes away and screams, and she feels the red cradling her, and she screams and screams and screams.

Steve comes up and she glares at him.

“For the last time, let me grieve.” He looks at her, before sitting down on her bedside, and she is so angry, so very full of rage, that she pushes at him, and he backs out of the door.

She is so tired of feeling for her brother, so exhausted with grieving, and she chokes out a sob before letting her red rise to her forehead.

Wanda breaths.

She delves into her own mind.

The memories are everywhere - Wanda cannot describe it, and she does not want to look at it, she just wants to find what’s wrong and section it off, to cover it, because Pietro’s not coming back, and she misses him, and she’s tired of missing.

She breaths and finds her grief. She covers it, covers it all, and buried her brother for the final time, under chains of red.

She cannot erase him form her mind, she is not sure she wants to, but she’d make herself feelingless. And she was awful for doing that, for forgetting her noble brother, but Wanda is tired of being tired and finished with feeling finished, and Pietro is now academic for her, a name she knows, but does not feel anything for.

She breathes her first full breath in so long.

* * *

Wanda eats.

When Steve ask him how it’s been, she looks him straight in the eye.

“I decided to move on.” Wanda says. She looks down into her hands and the red is curling around them. “My grief is behind me.”

Steve gives her a smile, though it almost seems to turn near the end. Natasha's smile is perfect.

Her scarlet swirls. Her eyes must have the faintest hint of red. The red must never fade.

**Author's Note:**

> This was born out of the frustration that the MCU never really acknowledged Wanda's grief over Pietro (and I really wish they acknowledged sibling loss more, like Thor was very clearly grieving and they didn't even have him look at Loki in Endgame, and while Nebula's grief is there, I wish it was explored in any meaningful capacity) ANYWAYS that looks like it might be changing in her show? which yay? but yeah.  
Then I had the thought that if you really wanted to explain away her sheer emotionless at her brother, well, have her take it into her own hands. And then this slightly disturbing thought came up.  
So basically Wanda handles her grief in - maybe not the worst way, but definitely an unhealthy one. Also Wanda's powers, in this fic, pretty much only care that she stays alive, because that's how it stays alive, so yeah. It's (part) why she turns to the solution she does so quickly.  
Also, I love writing Wanda's powers as an almost... separate identity? With it's own priorities? But Wanda barely knows, and the people around her think it's all her, so that's fun.


End file.
